Just Read Me
by Carrieosity
Summary: Castiel is on a business trip gone wrong. His bag has been stolen, and all he wants now is a moment or two to collect himself and regain his usual impermeable shell. The green-eyed stranger in his hotel bar is doing everything he can to crack through it.


Castiel had made a reputation for himself as an expert negotiator. What some would describe as a good "poker face," he had turned into an art form. People sitting on the other side of his table would sweat bullets attempting to discern whether he was leaning in favor of the terms they had put forth, or whether he was a heartbeat from removing both them and their company's business from his consideration. People positioned on his side of the table fared no better, silently terrified that his stony gaze might mean a premature end to negotiations and any potential profit, yet trusting his spotless record of always closing the deal in the best possible way. Nobody on either side of any table where Castiel was seated had a hope of reading the plans and thoughts being shaped behind his unyielding blue gaze.

Castiel was a wall. He was a wall made of ice.

Currently, he was a wall of ice threatening to flash-freeze the perspiring man in front of him, who was desperately wishing that some other security officer had been on duty instead of him.

"I'm sorry, sir. We are currently doing everything in our power to deal with this unfortunate situa—"

"'Unfortunate'?" Castiel's use of air quotes, illustrated with fingers curled in the air, somehow failed to make him seem awkward or any less intimidating. "Is that the term you wish to use? Malfunctioning water heaters are 'unfortunate.' A broken shoelace. Vacation illnesses. Theft, in broad daylight and in clear view of your post, exceeds that mark somewhat, don't you think?"

"Sir—"

"I believe that we are finished here. I have given you the information you require. When you have something to offer beyond useless apologies and bad coffee, I will be in the VIP lounge." Castiel dismissed the security officer with a wave of his hand, turning away without waiting for a response. He stalked through the emptying airport toward the glassed sanctuary of those who hate crowds and noise and can afford to escape both.

The guard heaved the sigh he'd been restraining for the entire conversation. Behind him, he heard tentative footsteps; the information desk worker whose post neighbored his had given a flimsy excuse and fled when the discussion had shown signs of turning volatile, and now she was creeping out of hiding in the back office. "What was _that_?" Her Portuguese was imperfect, but she had only been in Brazil for a few years.

"Big executive from the States, thinks his money can work miracles," he muttered back. "Thousands of travelers through here, and he thinks we can keep track of everybody and everything that happens. If your bag is so very important, don't take your eyes off it, you know?" It was unfair. Having a piece of luggage stolen was upsetting for anyone, whether it contained valuable items or just a toothbrush, but being scolded and lectured had eroded his sympathy. "Let the embassy people help him. They can deal with it."

The embassy people were not helping.

Rather, they were, but in a fluttery, fake-smile-and-weak-handshake way that did not inspire confidence or put Castiel's mind at ease. He was being provided a temporary passport, his sensitive personal documents were being handled, and they had brought him slightly better coffee. To his thinking, these were the bare minimum responses he had hoped for, and they did not solve his more pressing concerns.

"The laptop in my bag had very private, important information stored on it. I need it back."

"Mr. Novak, it's very probable that whoever took your bag has already passed any electronics on to a buyer. More than likely, the data on your computer was erased before sale."

"'Probable' and 'likely' do not reassure me. I am aware that identity theft is not unusual, and therefore it is a possibility that the thief could have chosen to break into my laptop in search of bank information and social security numbers. Passwords can be defeated. I want the thief caught."

"This is a large, busy airport, and many thefts occur every day without resolution. Mr. Novak, there is unfortunately little more we can do."

Biting back a snarl, Castiel turned his back and pulled out his cell phone. Dialing quickly, he pressed the phone to his ear and waited for the ringing on the other end to be answered.

" _Olá_ , Cassie! You made it to Sao Paolo! Chat up any hot _gatinhas_ yet?"

Castiel rolled his eyes. "Gabriel, this is a business trip, and this call is about business. I was calling to let you know that some bottom-feeding criminal _ass_ managed to steal my laptop bag after I got off the plane." His voice ended with a small crack of frustration. Closing his eyes, Castiel breathed deeply and sought to reclaim his controlled façade.

There was silence on the other end of the line. "Wow. You are _furious_ , kiddo." Gabriel sounded stunned at Castiel's momentary lapse in restraint, the equivalent of another man's wild cursing. "Maybe you better sit down and breathe. Did they catch the guy?"

"No. The thief switched my bag for a similar one when I wasn't looking, and when I realized that the other bag contained nothing but cardboard boxes, he was halfway across the concourse from me. I tried to chase after him—"

"Jesus, Cassie!"

"—but he managed to escape into the crowd. Gabriel, the merger documents are on that laptop, including our plans for executive restructuring. Those cannot be made public."

"Okay, sure, I get that, but we're talking about actual criminals in a foreign country, and you tried to, what, run him down and grab him? What were you going to do if he pulled a gun? I don't know how these guys operate, brother, and neither do you. You're a business man, not a vigilante superhero!"

This was the problem with trying to work with family members, Castiel mused. Personal connections always got in the way of seeing the larger picture; Gabriel's perspective was inevitably colored by his feelings.

"Look, I'll let Adler know that the laptop is gone and that _you're not dead_ , sweet Christ. We'll let you know if anything has to be changed on our end. Just go to your hotel, hit the bar, and have a drink. Have several. The meeting isn't until Monday, so you have the whole weekend to spend drunk and not thinking about fighting crime."

By the time Castiel walked out of the airport and entered the waiting car, he was once more the picture of impermeable, unreadable stoicism. The frustration and tension still simmered beneath the surface, but nobody looking at him would ever know.

"Rough day, huh?"

Staring at his trade magazine, Castiel grunted in response, hoping the man speaking to him would vanish.

"Yeah, I know how that is. You look like you've been through it today."

In truth, Castiel was feeling much better, having reshaped his plans for negotiation to allow for any consequences of the theft. He was once more prepared, having taken most of his evening to research and organize strategies for anything the other company might now be able to try. Only after these hours of work had he allowed himself to enter the hotel bar for a single well-earned glass of fine whiskey. He was feeling much more relaxed than he had all day.

"Mind if I join you? Aren't any other Americans here tonight, and I could really use a night off from translating everything I want to say. Plus, you need another drink, buddy."

Castiel slowly lowered his magazine to make eye contact with the stranger. Frequently, simply meeting the glance of a stranger in public was enough to cause them to turn away and leave him to his solitude. Gabriel had called his stare "intense," though a former bad date of Castiel's had heatedly referred to it as "creepy." _Lighten up, man,_ he had said; _just having a little fun, and then you go and ruin it by getting all creepy and serious._ Well, Castiel was a serious person, and he saw nothing wrong with that. If other people found it disconcerting, at least it meant that he could be left in peace.

Looking up at this stranger, however, several things immediately crossed Castiel's mind. First, he finally understood how it was that so many people had been left speechless at the sight of his own eyes. This man's eyes were _green_. In truth, the word "green" was a stupendously poor descriptor for the color of his eyes; they glittered and sparkled and seemed to draw Castiel forward without his moving an inch, hypnotizing him into temporary silence. Next, the stray thought floated across his mind that this man should never, ever go into business negotiations. His face was a model of everything Castiel had been taught to avoid in his work, revealing the man's open and friendly nature as though he had never had a single secret to hide or thought to hide them.

Third, he realized that his whiskey glass was indeed empty. This became clear as he made a grab for it and attempted to take a swallow of nothing.

The man laughed, but it was a warm laugh, one that practically screamed "safe" and "honest." He waved and signaled to the bartender, who brought two fresh glasses of whiskey to where the man and Castiel were now sitting together at the end of the bar. Castiel had been too busy attempting to clear his face and mind to respond when the stranger had taken the stool beside his. "Here, I told you that you needed this. Cheers."

Clearing his throat, Castiel took a sip from his own glass before replying. "How did you know I'd had a bad day?"

The man's eyes widened slightly. "Oh, man, your voice…how many packs a day are you, anyway?"

"I don't smoke."

"Okay, then you need to cut back on your gravel swallowing habit. Or maybe don't, because it's sort of really working for you." He actually _winked_. Castiel felt a moment of panic, grasping for the correct protocol for semi-flirtatious overtures from strangers in foreign bars, as the man continued. "Anyway, you just looked pretty stressed out. Your whole body is radiating it. Shoulders, neck…and that's before I even saw your face."

Castel tried to do a quick scan of his body language. As far as he could detect, he was sitting the same way he always did, the way that betrayed no information that he didn't deliberately choose to reveal. His face wore the usual careful mask of emotionless calm that he had perfected through experience. "I must be more tired than I thought," he murmured, almost to himself. "Is my mood really so transparent?"

"Nah, man. I'm just really good at reading people," the stranger said, green eyes twinkling. "What can I say? I travel around a lot, and I probably spend more time talking with strangers than I do with folks I know. If I don't want to spend my life lonely, I have to be good at making every conversation count, not wasting time on stupid posturing." He grinned widely, easing any possible offense carried by his words. "So, my name's Dean. You?"

"Castiel." Shaking his head to try to dispel the disconcertingly novel feeling of being looked at and actually _seen_ , Castiel took another swallow of whiskey and studied Dean. "You're a traveler? For business?"

"Business and pleasure. They're sort of mixed up, I s'pose. Family business, but I choose what to do and where to do it – like contracts, only I hire myself, so I set the terms." Dean smirked, in a way that seemed to say that he took himself as lightly as he took anything else. "Not like you, I'd guess. You look like a guy who's pretty damn serious about his work. When's the last time pleasure entered into it for you?"

Castiel was stunned. _Who does this man think he is?_ "I certainly do enjoy my work," he stated. He took a much larger drink, now wishing to finish quickly so he could escape the bar and this stranger who certainly knew nothing about what he did or who he was. "I'm very good at it. Extremely good, I might say."

"Being good at something isn't the same thing as liking it, though. You didn't answer my question." Those green eyes seemed to glow in the dim lights, causing Castiel to wonder momentarily whether pounding his drink quickly was a wise choice after all. "I can see just by looking at you that you're probably successful at whatever you choose to do. But when's the last time you really let yourself make a choice? For yourself, not for somebody's bottom line?"

"I…" Castiel stopped. It was unthinkable that a complete stranger was backing him into a corner like this. _I've faced down CEOs from Fortune 500 companies and made them follow my lead. I've stood in front of boards of directors and subtly shaped the futures of industries. I have had lawyers talk circles around me for hours, only to cut through their arguments with a few well-crafted statements. Now this…Dean is simply looking at me, and he's managed to make me speechless._

He felt as though he could have gotten angry, but in the face of that smile, those damned green eyes, and the foreignness of the entire situation, Castiel found himself instead wanting to explore further. This was not business negotiation; this was personal. In a strange way, he felt as though he was negotiating for his own soul.

"…so, wait. Guy steals your bag, and you were going to chase him down? What would you have done if you'd actually caught him?"

"I'm not sure, to tell you the truth. When I was a boy, I took karate for a few years, but I rather doubt my green belt would have been much assistance." Castiel was laughing, his glass having been refilled twice? Maybe three times. He was drinking much more slowly, and interspersing sips of water, but he was undeniably feeling the effects of the liquor. "I believe the adrenaline was speaking much more loudly than my logical brain."

"Yeah, but come on. You may be dressed like Constantine, but you're definitely more, I dunno, accountant than action hero." Dean gestured to the trench coat lying across the stool beside Castiel. "I don't think you're carrying any magic blades in the sleeves of that thing."

"And I doubt I could have 'negotiated,' either," Castiel said with a chuckle. "Probably I would have just sat on him until the police arrived. It worked with my brothers growing up, after all." The sound of Dean's cackling made him blush and laugh harder.

"Just out of college, via my father's contacts. The job wasn't entry level, but it was certainly nothing that would have stunk of nepotism, he made sure of that. I worked my way up on my own, earning a name, and now I've been doing high level arbitrations for several years."

"So, that's all you've ever wanted to be?"

"It's where my family aimed me," Castiel said. "My father, my grandfather, all my uncles, brothers. We're a corporate bundle, to play on words. Not really much room for deviation. I'm not sure what would happen if I… _somebody_ was to want something…different."

"You're good at that," Dean said thoughtfully.

"Good at what?"

"Avoiding answering questions by answering different ones from what I'm asking." He swirled his glass of water, both men now attempting to ease back from the precipice of heavy intoxication. "Cas, what I asked was whether you ever _wanted_ to be something else. When you were young, before you strapped on their uniform and went to fight in their corporate wars."

A minute of comfortable silence fell as Castiel thought. _Cas_ , he considered. _He's known me a few hours, and he's nicknamed me. And I like it._ "For a time, I considered…something else. I don't know." He sighed. "I like helping people, listening and learning. That's part of what I do now. I _don't_ like using that skill to then force others to do what my employers want. I think, if I could, I'd rather counsel than manipulate. I can see people's weaknesses when we're in discussion, and sometimes I feel like I'd rather do anything else than use those weaknesses against them. Last week, in fact…no."

"No, what?"

"No, I can't tell you." Castiel's cheeks grew hot.

"Cas, we're not even on last names, here. You can think of me as your whiskey-bearing psychiatrist, if you want, or maybe a church confessor. You look like you need to get something out, and I'm as safe as houses. What happened last week?"

"Well…" Castiel took a moment to search Dean's face. He found himself wanting, no, _needing_ to tell Dean what he had done. "There was a meeting with a smaller company we were thinking of acquiring. A young woman representative. I could tell she was tired, and she let slip more than she might otherwise have done. I knew that with that, we could have her company for half what we were intending to offer, and I knew she would suffer for that tiny slip. Nobody else caught it." He took a breath. "I ignored it. I made our offer based on information we had already had, and we made the original deal."

"Wow, Cas. You rebel." Only a slight crinkling beside Dean's eyes showed that he found any part of Castiel's confession humorous.

"It was a good deal, and both sides were satisfied. There was no reason for anyone to be hurt." He frowned into his glass.

"Then why are you ashamed?"

Castiel quickly looked back up. "I'm not ashamed."

"No. You're not." Dean studied him. "You're actually proud…but angry? Why?"

Again, Castiel pondered whether he was telegraphing his emotions directly across the bar toward Dean. "If I'm angry, I'm angry that I have to keep good intentions secret, while being lauded for cut-throat choices that ruin innocent people. I never fully realized that's what I was becoming until that moment."

In the quiet that followed, Dean reached out and placed his hand on Castiel's shoulder, close to his throat. Something soft crossed his eyes. "Cas. Let's get out of here."

It was nearly one o'clock in the morning, but the hotel was located in a busy part of town, and nightlife was spilling onto the street. They walked from patch of light to patch of light, listening to bursts of loud music in a companionable peace, until they reached a quieter plaza with a few benches looking onto a fountain.

"You know, I said I work for myself, but it's not always been like this, exactly," Dean said. "When I was working with my dad, he had this whole vision for what he wanted us to be doing, and honestly, it was almost bordering on being con men. What we do…I promise, I'm not being vague for no reason. I'm being as open as I can – more than I usually am, really." He shrugged uncomfortably; Castiel said nothing, waiting. "Let's just say that my work…maybe I'm the one who should be wearing that trench coat and carrying blades."

"Fight through hell to rescue the innocent?"

Dean barked a laugh. "Maybe. But being in those kinds of situations, even to help, means you're dealing with a lot of people on the edge, in their worst, weakest moments. Taking advantage of that would make me worse than the things I'm fighting."

Castiel noted the word "things" instead of "men" or "people," but he chose not to remark. It was becoming steadily apparent that Dean's work was not entirely above board, and he found himself not wanting to find out anything that would make him feel uneasy about his new…friend? Companion? That, too, was something he decided could wait to be examined.

Dean continued with a sigh. "Dad didn't think about it as much as I did, I guess. It wasn't that he was deliberately using people, but he was so focused on getting the job done that everything else took a back seat. Sometimes the honest, ethical route was the slower one, so he'd trample over anything or anyone in his path in the name of expediency." He shook his head. "That's not how I wanted to be. We argued, fought, got ugly, and now we work separately. Better this way."

"That's brave, standing up for what you believe," Castiel said. No matter what Dean actually did in his line of work, he was doing it in the way he chose. Perhaps the manner was more important even than the job.

"Dad didn't think so," Dean snorted. "He said I was being a coward, running away from the hard choices to make myself feel better." Castiel shook his head, contradicting the harsh words, but Dean went on, saying, "But I do feel better, and if I didn't, I don't think I could still be doing this. And," he said with a sudden smile, "I wouldn't be meeting mysterious blue-eyed crime fighters in South American bars."

"Hardly a crime fighter," Cas said with a blush, "and apparently hardly mysterious. You had me read to rights from the moment you saw me, it felt like. Nobody has ever done that."

"I bet they tried." Dean was studying him with new intensity. Castiel felt as though those green eyes were reading the actual thoughts and feelings printed inside his brain, and he realized with wonder that he actually wanted him to see them. He wanted Dean to know that he was beginning to wish that the two of them could continue this exploration indefinitely, that he could allow Dean to learn all his private yearnings, everything that he had always held close to his chest.

Dean's hand found Castiel's throat again, pausing when he seemed to note the pulse fluttering faster than it had with the earlier touch. Unblinking, the two men gazed at each other, silently communicating; unrestrained green eyes stared into blue as the latter made the choice to open doors and stop hiding. No words were spoken. None were necessary. The wordless discussion found resolution in the inevitable slow meeting of lips and fisting of hands into fabric.

Castiel could not have said how the two of them had made it back to the hotel. He only knew that they had barely stopped touching and kissing as they rode the elevator to Dean's room. Talking was limited to bare syllables ( _please, here, may I? God, yes…_ ) and the master negotiator himself gladly surrendered his foremost skill in favor of working in hushed tandem toward their goal. Lips were for kissing, biting, sucking, and he found himself wondering why he had been wasting all his time on words before now.

Dean allowed him little thinking at all, though, touching him more gently than he thought he'd ever been touched before. Naked and covered in a sweat born of exertion and humid Brazilian heat coming through open windows, Castiel surrendered to the firm grip of hands on hips, feeling Dean's fingers slowly work him open without a trace of burn. When he curled his fingers against Castiel's prostate, Cas wailed, hearing the sound echoed by strange birds in the night.

Then Dean was entering him, holding him tightly, murmuring, " _Cas, oh, Cas…_ " in his ear as he slowly thrust. Still without words, Castiel opened his eyes and spoke instead the new unspoken language Dean had showed him. They gasped into each other's mouths, feeling overwhelmed by each other, chasing release yet not wanting the moment to end.

 _This is more than this act_ , the thought floated through Castiel's hazy mind. He responded by latching his mouth to Dean's shoulder and biting. Dean's hips stuttered and then thrust hard, and his strong climax pushed Castiel into his own with a shout.

In the morning, Castiel awoke to an empty bed. Somehow, he had known that he would. Confessors don't usually stay around after confession has ended, after all.

Dean had left a tray with coffee and pastries, making his apology in the same wordless manner they had built together. There was no goodbye note, nothing to allow Castiel the thought of keeping in contact. Instead, sitting on the tray next to the mug was a simple Polaroid picture of Castiel, asleep. He studied the photo, seeing a peace on his brow that he rarely saw in a mirror. He looked satisfied, he realized, in more than a physical sense. He had been understood, probably for the first time in his life.

Castiel dressed, sipping the coffee, and returned to his own room before checking his phone. There were two missed texts from Gabriel, along with the usual pile of work-related emails and voice messages.

 _Brother, you there? I tried to call._

 _Cassie, call me later. Unless you're with someone. In which case, really call me!_

Rolling his eyes, Castiel scanned the work messages and suddenly found himself feeling very, very tired. He glanced across the room and saw his reflection in a mirror, face suddenly void of the tranquility he had seen in the photo. His eyes looked as closed-off as they ever had.

Walking to the mirror, Castiel held up the photo next to his face and compared the two versions of himself. After several long moments of thought, he went to his bed and lay down, eyes closed, and thought again. Finally, he came to a decision.

"Cassie! Tried to call you last night! Chase down any more criminals?"

"Gabriel, I think I need to talk. I need to make some changes."


End file.
